During the Pronghorn’s brief mating season in September, they are a little less wary and getting a decent photo is a bit more likely. Even so, they are usually heading over the hill by the time I get my camera out. A quick little whistle can often make them stop and look back.
Falling Yellow
As summer winds down and fall approaches, the majority of wildflowers are shades of yellow.
Beautiful Simplicity
There is a beautiful simplicity in the way a horse moves across the land.
Day in the High Country
The mountain treeline is my favorite place to be on a hot summer day. Temperatures are at least 15 degrees cooler up there and any reprieve from the high nineties is welcome. I had plans to hike a trail to a destination, but once I got there I just wanted to wander across the open…
Shades of Yellow
We have had one of the wettest springs I can remember in a long time. Nice little rains keep coming- almost daily. It’s always interesting to see how the spring weather pattern determines which plants will dominate the landscape. This year it seems to be the annual mustards (members of the Brassicaceae family) and Yellow…
Pronghorn: Icon of Wyoming
Perfectly adapted to the sage brush steppe, Pronghorn, Antilocapra americana, is an iconic wildlife species of Wyoming. Visitors are often surprised when they see pronghorn, saying they “look like something from Africa.” Pronghorn are the second fastest land mammal on the planet, able to reach speeds exceeding 50 mph. Sagebrush is a staple of their…
Water is Life
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Wyoming is a headwater state. Straddling the continental divide, Wyoming feeds four major river basins: the Missouri-Mississippi, Green-Colorado, Snake-Columbia, and Great Salt Lake.1 Given the low rainfall in Wyoming’s lower elevations, we all keep a close eye on the mountain snowpack. The mountain snowpack will, for the most part,…
Early Risers
We are having a nice slow warm up here in my part of Wyoming. Even so, the speed with which the wildflowers begin to bloom always catches me by surprise. Many of our early spring native wildflowers only need a few days above the mid fifties Fahrenheit to start their green up, and then a…
Hope for Declining Groundwater Aquifers?
Recent efforts to recharge groundwater in Idaho are showing positive results. “Last winter, the state of Idaho succeeded in recharging 317,000 acre-feet of water into an important aquifer, enough to serve 700,000 homes for a year. It was an important milestone in an ambitious program to restore a groundwater source that had been overtapped for…
Pink is the New Orange
A number of laws were passed in this last session of the Wyoming legislature. One of those being that fluorescent pink is now acceptable as hunting attire. I’m actually glad about this. Not because I love pink, but because last hunting season it was hot, and all my blaze orange is for cold weather. I…
The Borrowed Days
This year March is spilling over into April. I grew up with the farmer’s lore regarding March “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb” and vice versa, but this March the lion has been greedy, occupying the coming, the going, and then some. Irish folklore tells of March borrowing three days from April to…
Boys in the Hood
With low light, a zoom lens, and no tripod there wasn’t much chance of a stellar shot, but I thought you might enjoy the “boys” I’ve been seeing every morning. For those unfamiliar with agriculture in the Rocky Mountain West, it’s worth mentioning that it is estimated 80% of Wyoming’s native animals depend on private…
Wyoming Life 